Activities – Rozi's Life Abroad

Waking up to the sound of rain trickling on your window is so romanticised in cinema, but in reality it’s just wanting to skip class to stay in bed, wearing 3 layers, a raincoat, and a hat, and lugging around an umbrella only for it to be raining to lightly to even open it and still getting wet. And honestly, Vienna on a rainy day is a difficult task as so many activities require the outdoors, so basically the whole month of May is a struggle.

Catch a movie

Whether you like new European/German releases or want to be up-to-date with western cinema, Viennese movie theatres show a wide a range of movies. For European movies you can go to any cinema at all, but that usually includes German subtitles. If you want to watch an English movie in its true form (as in no subtitles) you should head to an English cinema. My personal favorite is Haydn, located on Mariahilferstrasse, as it’s super convinient to book/buy tickets online, and they also frequently have reruns of older classics so if you’re lucky you can catch one of those.

Tip: Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays are saver days so the tickets are at a discounted price (7-9 Euros). Students discounts are also always available, if you show a card.

Go to a library

The library is one of my favourite places to go to study in peace or read a good book, the rain outside is only an additional plus. The options for this are endless, but if you prefer a more scenic experience you should head to the National Library (which is also a museum), or the UniWien library (usually crowded). The one I like to go to is the Hauptbücherei am Gürtel as it’s very big and you’re sure to find a free desk, and at the back there’s couches with giant windows overlooking the street and you can spend hours curled up reading.

Go to a cafe

Cafe Eiles (one of my favorite cafes in the whole city)
©A-List

This ones an obvious one as Viennese coffee-house culture is in a league of its own, but go to any small cafe, there is one on every street, and you can expect kind and fast service and you can stay for a long time. Sit in the back and people-watch the wide variety of customers, read a book (a big hobby of mine clearly) or study, it doesn’t get very loud. Take this opportunity to go to a lesser-known cafe and order something new!!

Visit a museum

A rainy day is the perfect opportunity to go see some art, imperia l riches, or animal corpses ,and by the time you leave the rain might have stopped. Walk around and engulf yourself in the content, it really helps to clear your mind. Vienna is full of amazing museums and it depends on what you want to see, there is one for any type of person. My favorites would have to be the Naturhistorisches Museum which has many interesting showings, including a moving model of a T-Rex(a biased choice because of my major), and the Albertina which is constantly bringing in new exhibitions so there is always something fresh to see.

Buy a poncho

The last option is to suck it up and buy the wearable version of a plastic bag, throw it on over your clothes and enjoy Vienna in the rain. You can find a wide selection of ponchos in any store in the city center. The city is very serene when it rains, and the centre is relatively free so just walk around without a map, get lost, eat a Wurst, drink a Wiener Melange, and then find you way back home.

My final advice is to not let the rain stop you from enjoying the day, it might not end up being the trip you imagined but there’s still many things to do, even when its pouring :).

Ever yours,
Rozi

When you think of a typical monday morning student activity, the aquarium is never the first thing that comes to mind, or even one of the first ten things, but that is where our easter break boredom lead us, and honestly I am very glad it did. The Haus des Meeres is the public aquarium in Vienna, located in Esterhazy Park in the Mariahilf district (Fritz-Grunbaum-Platz 1).

We started off the day with waiting in a 45-minute line to get in, surrounded by kids of literally all ages. Once we entered the building we waited a bit more inside, but the line was moving quickly and within a few minutes we were in. The tickets were quite pricey (14,10€ for students), but I think the one-time splurge was worth it.

Once inside, the trip begins with what everyone’s expecting to be the best part, the clear tunnel which is supposed to make you feel like you’re inside the ocean. The tunnel was actually more like a small passage way, and not really surrounded by that many fish, so we just quickly passed through to get to the better parts.

After that came the snake and frog section, some of the snakes were hidden behind the plants and you could only the see the shedded skin but sometimes they would come really close to the window and follow your finger making you feel like you’re in that one Harry Potter scene 🙂 There were also some iguanas and komodo dragons in the larger spaces.

Following was the jellyfish and smaller fish section which was one of my favorites. There was one very big case with many many tiny white jellyfish and the whole room was dark so they were glowing and just swimming around and frankly it was mesmerising. If I wasn’t there with my other friends I might have stuck around by the jellyfish for hours.

After climbing a few stairs was the open monkey and bird space, which was probably the most entertaining part of the trip. There were small monkeys jumping everywhere, and by that I actually mean everywhere !!! Besides their designated tree structures they would climb onto the parts of the sides of the building, and one of them even jumped right into the middle of the opening area, and you could see its cute little face scrambling to find another spot to jump to. The rule was that you are not allowed to touch them no matter how close they come to you and everyone stayed at a distance and didn’t even try to touch the monkeys which I thought was so great, a culture that I don’t think the people in the Americas have adopted yet. There were also colourful birds flying around but no one could pay attention to them when these tiny furry creatures were jumping around. Some of them even had baby monkeys on their back literally the size of a human palm. This part of the exhibit was very humid and if you’re planing on going, dress lightly.

After that there was more stairs, and it was a lookout type space to very long glass sections which connected two floors, and it contained many larger fish, a very pretty giant turtle, stingrays, and smaller sharks. The turtle would come and go and everyone would just stare at how its movements were so gentle .They also would drop feed into the aquarium at times and you would see the fish all rush to one place and swim about frantically. At the very end back on the first floor was a koi fish which was hidden away so be careful not to miss it as they allow you to put your hands in the water and some of the fish latch on, its very relaxing.

We spent around two hours inside and it was really an all-around great experience. The only problem we had was that the organisation of the building was a bit confusing, so be sure to have checked out all the exhibitions before leaving. Haus des Meeres is one of the lesser talked about attractions in Vienna and I personally think it’s underrated, so if you ever have a spare few hours be sure to visit !!

ever yours,
Rozi
R

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Category: Activities

Vienna on a Rainy Day (or Month)

One Day at Haus des Meeres